Artful Dodger: Ok.... so lets go back in history to past uses of water boarding and the consequences there of...

"After the Spanish American War of 1898 in the Philippines, the U.S. army used waterboarding, called the "water cure" at the time. It is not clear where this practice came from; it probably was adopted from the Filipinos, who themselves adopted it from the Spanish.[105] Reports of "cruelties" from soldiers stationed in the Philippines led to Senate hearings on U.S. activity there.

Testimony described the waterboarding of Tobeniano Ealdama "while supervised by ...Captain/Major Edwin F. Glenn (Glenn Highway)."[106]

Elihu Root, United States Secretary of War, ordered a court martial for Glenn in April 1902."[107] During the trial, Glenn "maintained that the torture of Ealdama was 'a legitimate exercise of force under the laws of war.'"[106]

Though some reports seem to confuse Ealdama with Glenn,[108] Glenn was found guilty and "sentenced to a one-month suspension and a fifty-dollar fine," the leniency of the sentence due to the "circumstances" presented at the trial.[106]

President Theodore Roosevelt privately rationalized the instances of "mild torture, the water cure" but publicly called for efforts to "prevent the occurrence of all such acts in the future.""

"The use of "third degree interrogation" techniques to compel confession, ranging from "psychological duress such as prolonged confinement to extreme violence and torture", was widespread in early American policing. Lassiter classified the water cure as "orchestrated physical abuse",[110] and described the police technique as a "modern day variation of the method of water torture that was popular during the Middle Ages". The technique employed by the police involved either holding the head in water until almost drowning, or laying on the back and forcing water into the mouth or nostrils.[110] Such techniques were classified as "'covert' third degree torture" since they left no signs of physical abuse, and became popular after 1910 when the direct application of physical violence to force a confession became a media issue and some courts began to deny obviously compelled confessions."

"Chase J. Nielsen, one of the U.S. airmen who flew in the Doolittle raid following the attack on Pearl Harbor, was subjected to waterboarding by his Japanese captors.[117] At their trial for war crimes following the war, he testified "Well, I was put on my back on the floor with my arms and legs stretched out, one guard holding each limb. The towel was wrapped around my face and put across my face and water poured on. They poured water on this towel until I was almost unconscious from strangulation, then they would let up until I'd get my breath, then they'd start over again... I felt more or less like I was drowning, just gasping between life and death."[38] The United States hanged Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American prisoners of war."

"Waterboarding was designated as illegal by U.S. generals in the Vietnam War.[122] On 21 January 1968, The Washington Post published a controversial front-page photograph of two U.S soldiers and one South Vietnamese soldier participating in the waterboarding of a North Vietnamese POW near Da Nang.[123] The article described the practice as "fairly common".[123] The photograph led to the soldier being court-martialled by a U.S. military court within one month of its publication, and he was discharged from the army.[122][124] Another waterboarding photograph of the same scene, referred to as "water torture" in the caption, is also exhibited in the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City.[125]"

"The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission received testimony from Charles Zeelie and Jeffrey Benzien, officers of the South African Police under Apartheid, that they used waterboarding, referred to as "tubing", or the "wet bag technique" on political prisoners as part of a wide range of torture methods to extract information.[131][132]:pp.206 Specifically, a cloth bag was wet and placed over victim's heads, to be removed only when they were near asphyxiation; the procedure was repeated several times.[131][132]:pp.206 The TRC concluded that the act constituted torture and a gross human rights violation, for which the state was responsible..."

....................Now, if all these courts and cases state that water boarding is torture and illegal, and as such a war crime......

... How can you say it is not?